Samuel Sanchez gauged his effort perfectly on the final mountain stage of the Vuelta a Espana and managed to move into 6th in the overall standings. The Spaniard is proud of his performance in a grand tour that has one of the strongest fields in recent years.

BMC Racing Team's Samuel Sánchez finished eighth Saturday and climbed from seventh to sixth overall on the next-to-last day of the Vuelta a España. 

Sánchez arrived 2:58 behind stage winner and race leader Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) on the summit finish of the 185.7-kilometer race. But more importantly, the 2008 Olympic Games road race champion finished 24 seconds ahead of Daniel Martin to displace the Garmin-Sharp rider in the overall standings on the eve of Sunday's final-stage, 9.7-kilometer individual time trial.

BMC Racing Team Sport Director Valerio Piva said the team worked well to protect Sánchez on the three categorized climbs leading to the finish.

"After that Samuel did the rest," Piva said. "Today he was strong and intelligent. He knew the last mountain and he did it at his pace without responding to the attacks. Our goal was try to pass Martin in the GC (general classification) and he was able to do it."

Sánchez said if he is unable to move up further in the time trial, he will still be pleased with his result.

"We were only missing (Tour de France winner) Vincenzo Nibali in this Vuelta," Sánchez said. "These are the best GC riders in the world, so I can satisfied about my placement. It was a tough year and I worked so hard to get this result. It was a spectacular race during these three weeks, beginning with the team time trial in Jerez and finishing with the individual time trial in Santiago tomorrow. To understand how was hard it was, you only have to look at the riders' faces."